Catching up

Some odds and ends as I surf the Web and jam to Prince’s “Kiss” on Pandora ….

• Here is a cool site that really lays out the issues and the players in wireless advertising. There are more than the players listed here, but they really get to the heart of the issue - getting people to accept ads on their phones. Interesting take on which industries would be good for it: “Dining and Restaurant Reservations, Theatre Ticket Reservations, Hotels and Motels in connection with Telematics.” I would add retail, and especially grocery stores (see my previous post). But overall, MobileInfo.com gets it right.
• Here is a report of yet another prediction of more ad spend on “non-traditional” media, including mobile. This one suggests that even with the current threat of economic downturn, we’re looking at a 20.2 percent jump to $88.2 billion this year. This includes segments such as casual gaming, etc., but mobile certainly will take a share of that.
• Why has no one really followed up on/copied the coolest of all the iPhone applications? Sure, wanna-be devices are coming out in droves, but for me, the visual voice mail was the true new killer app on that phone (the rest was all superior UI as well as the ability to have your iPod and phone in one device). I know that Alcatel-Lucent did the back-end stuff for AT&T to make it happen, but why is it not been launched on other devices/networks since? (For those of you without an iPhone, the service allows you to see who called, and just touch the entry to hear the message, just like an e-mail inbox. No dialing in for voice mail - it is shipped to the phone within minutes of the message being left).
• That being said - here is a quick endorsement for another service that comes close - CallWave. If you can get your phone configured (or if your provider lets you), it comes really close to the “virtual voicemail” that is advertised. And they are playing around with voice to text conversion that allows you to get a sense of the message. Not quite as good as SpinVox, which uses real people to get the accuracy rate up, but not as expensive either. CallWave has a nifty widget for a PC, and even allows you to screen the call after a few rings either on your PC or on your cell.  You also get transcribed text messages, and e-mails (with a full voice message attached). You can also transfer back and forth between different lines. HawaiiTel (the major telecom in Hawaii) offered this, calling it Call Choice.
• And off topic - got another  comic series worth delving into. It’s called Y: The Last Man and it chronicles Yorick Brown, the lone remaining male of any species on the planet after a mysterious plague kills all the Y chromosomes but leaves all the females. And no, it’s not a dream world for poor Mr. Brown.

Well, duh!

Research firm The Diffusion Group has spent a lot of money proving what everyone knows already - people don’t want to watch long-form entertainment on their phones.

Of course not. If I want to watch Lost, I’ll record it on my DVR and watch it in hi-def, thank you very much. But the media companies keep trying to push it, and even Apple has tried to use the idea of watching “Pirates of the Carribean” on your iPhone as a cool thing. 

No, people use their phones for minutes, not hours at a time (and don’t forget the eye strain). They don’t want to have to fumble with getting it set up, and the glitchiness that can come in the video quality is a big turnoff too.

This actually plays into two experiences I had recently regarding this topic.

Last week, someone asked me if screen sizes on cell phones would be getting bigger or was the iPhone as big as it got and here is my response:

“My first reaction to your question about screen size is not really, they won’t get much bigger, and here are three reasons why:

• The pocket factor. People want something they can stuff in the jeans and bolt out the door. A BlackBerry is about as big as you’re going to get. The dull thud of the failure of the ultra-compact PC (about the size of a paperback book)  is still echoing in my ears. In the end, it is still a phone for talking with people, or at least will be that for awhile. If anything, slim is in (see the Motorola Q, the Samsung BlackJack, etc.)
• Battery life. The bigger the screen, the more juice is needed. And while Moore’s Law has kept up with processers, not so much with batteries. Battery technology hasn’t quite kept up.
• Simplicity. People want something that is easy to use, and that’s why the iPhone was a hit while other smartphones and BlackBerries are seek for biz types or geeks like me. The bigger it gets, the more buttons it probably has, and the harder it is to use and that scares people away.”

And the second experience came at a conference that featured local advertising companies and agencies. I asked several of them what they thought the future of wireless advertising was, and all of them said that first and foremost, it would have to be opt-in, meaning that only if the consumer was willing to receive it would it show up on the phone.

And another said that it eventually will come down to creating relevant content, whether it be a hysterically funny ad or a coupon (see below) that pulls the consumer to the content, instead of pushing it out.

It’s a brand new medium, though folks, and agencies such as these are still working out how to paint on that canvas.

But paint they will, given the stakes.

Terminator v. Heroes - my money is on Hiro

 

Watched with interest all the new ads for both Verizon’s VCast  as well as NBC/Universal’s new NBC2Go feature. Both show the distinct difference that content providers and service provides have in pushing and managing the material.

 

Can’t say I’ve tried Verizon’s VCast for a couple of years, as I am not a subscriber there. the last time was testing it for my previous writing gig, and it was just getting off the ground. The devices were not quite yet ready for prime time and weren’t able to take full advantage of Verizon’s 3G (high-speed wireless) network.

 

But what must Verizon’s ad budget be if they can afford to put out TV spots on nothing but their tie in to shows such as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles? (Apart from Lost, this show is the best thing on TV with the writers’ strike underway. Side thought - wonder if the writers’ strike applies to Web-only or mobile-only content?) 

 

And I’ve got to be honest, I seriously wonder if such content is helping them move the subscriber needle at all. Is it just the coolness by association factor? 

 

As for NBC2Go, Michael Stroud at iHollywoodforum.com had this to say about it. I agree: when it comes to getting content (whether it be advertising or entertainment) onto mobile devices, the service providers. He quotes Salil Dalvi, NBC Universal’s general manager for wireless, as saying that it’s hard to make money selling content to mobile outlets, because the service providers hold all the cards.

It’s the same model that keeps true device innovation from taking off in this country, as opposed to other nations and regions (see my first post about Europe and Asia and mobile computing).

 

Turns out NBC2Go is only available through a few providers, for example - Verizon VCast and soon AT&T. So again, I can’t try it. Device compatibility will also probably be a major issue going forward.

 

Still, is it enough to advertise on to either drive viewership (and ad dollars and CPM) or subscriptions?

 

Methinks not, but that could be changing. And if efforts such as NBC’s can drive further convergence without being beholden to the service providers, all the better.